Coins/Medals/USA/Canada History: Silver Canadian Chief's Pri...

Hammer

£4,000

Coins/Medals/USA/Canada History: Silver Canadian Chief's Prince of Wales' "Indian Peace" Medal 1860 Great Britain Victoria Peace Medal, BHM-1975, Silver Breton-24. 75mm 166g. Approx. The 1860 Indian peace medals were distributed as part of the events to celebrate the Prince of Wales' Royal Visit to Canada, prompted by the opening of the Victoria Bridge in Montreal that year. In his Journal of the Progress of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales Through British North America, Gardener D. Engelhart describes one such meeting with 75 members of various tribes who had travelled to Sarnia, Ontario, to meet the Prince:
"Their spokesman was the Chief of the Ojibways of Garden River on Lake Huron; his name, being interpreted, is "Fluent Tongue;" he was dramatic in tone and gesture as he yelled out in flowery language the welcome of the tribes, hoping 'that the sky may always look fine to give happiness both to the whites and red-skins;' this was duly interpreted and acknowledged, and silver medals were distributed amongst them, in commemoration of the visit." Instead of striking new medals specifically for the occasion, examples of the 1840 Victoria peace medal by William Wyon were engraved in the left obverse field with the feathers of the Prince of Wales and his motto ICH DIEN ("I Serve") below. The year of the visit, 1860, appears in the right obverse field. All but a handful of the known 1860 Prince of Wales peace medals are in this 75mm size.